John Gilmore explains why sterophiles who buy DRM are suckers:
Cory Doctorow: A reader writes, “In response to ZDNet blogger Dave Berlind’s DRM nightmare blog post about why his $20,000 worth of audiophile gear can’t play the 99-cent songs he’s buying, EFF founder John Gilmore sent an e-mail that says the nightmare won’t stop until all of us to come to our senses and stop buying DRM-encumbered content.
So yeah, the guy is a doofus to play a 99¢ song on his $20,000 audiophile system and expect much. Hello, these are 128k compressed versions of CD quality audio. Others have posted that Apple should also sell lossless or at least very-high quality versions of their wares for those who want them (anyone think the 128k standard wasn’t part of the deal Steve Jobs had to strike with the RIAA cartel?): if they did, I could see someone incorporating the iPod or iTMS tracks into an audiophile rig.
I see the issues with DRM here, certainly, but enough people are finding ways around that (hymn or the the CD passthrough method) to make that a distraction in this case. At the end of the day, someone who’s OK with lossy recordings can’t expect too much. The iPod and iTMS combination wasn’t intended for serious home listeners, the kind who unplug their refrigerator to avoid missing anything. While I am sympathetic to the hassle faced by someone in this position, the milk of human kindness curdles when I remember, this should not have been a surprise.